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Is 8GB enough?

M

marty1990

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Nov 25, 2011
413
20
England
Lol. Another question regarding the 4 8GB.

... is 8GB enough for the iPhone? My current phone has a 1GB micro SD card in, and 170MB of internal memory. Many of my apps are stored on the phone itself with a few on the memory card. I also have about 30 songs on the SD card. Occasionally I get a warning telling me my phone (on board memory) is too full and I need to remove an app, or delete a chunk of text messages.

I have a 2nd gen 16GB iPod touch which I don't use anymore, but that had the majority of my music collection on with a couple of pictures, a couple of movies and a few apps.

I only really use a couple of apps now, so I'd most likely only have Twitter (which is integrated anyway) and Facebook... maybe Angry Birds. I'd have some music on as well.

Realistically, how much music would I be able to put on the phone, along with apps and pics?

And how much do texts take up on the phone?
 
Surely

Surely

Guest
Oct 27, 2007
15,042
11
Los Angeles, CA
You have to remember that you won't have the entire 8GB to work with, as flash formatting and the OS takes up around 2GB (My 16GB iPhone only has a capacity of 13.7GB). I'd say that you could get away with 3-4GB of music, leaving the rest free for apps, photos, and other data.

I've been getting by with a 16GB iPhone 4 (after downgrading from a 32GB 3GS), but I'll be upgrading back to a 32GB iPhone whenever the next iPhone comes out.
 
Last edited:
digitard

digitard

macrumors 6502a
Sep 15, 2004
666
51
Gilbert, AZ
It's really a matter of your personal use, and whether you think as you use it more for your primary device will you start to use things like apps and music more than now?

I found that my 32GB iPhone(s) are perfect for me as I sync about 12GB of music on, then have a bunch of apps, tons of photo's, some video taken w/ the camera, and so forth, and routinely go over 15GB used space so the 16GB wouldn't have been enough.

Prior to the iPhone I had an 8GB Touch and Droid w/ 2GB memory card and I didn't use much either of them, but found myself using my iPhone a lot more since it was a "one device to rule them all" type situation.
 
N

NoHo

macrumors 6502
Aug 2, 2011
303
5
Get the most amount of space you can afford.

iCloud is really nice, but the wireless companies are getting to the point where they are putting data at a premium to maximize profits so unless you're on WiFi, iCloud will use up a lot of data and you will be forced to either upgrade to a higher tier data plan or just not use your phone.

I went with 64GB because I have a lot of music and used to stream my library through orb but 2GB goes super fast if you're doing anything other than checking email, texting and light browsing.
 
T

takeshi74

macrumors 601
Feb 9, 2011
4,974
68
marty1990 said:
... is 8GB enough for the iPhone?
Click to expand...
Totally subjective question. You need to look at your usage to answer your question. 8GB isn't enough for me as I'm currently using 17GB.

marty1990 said:
Realistically, how much music would I be able to put on the phone, along with apps and pics?
Click to expand...
Not sure what you're expecting. Songs, apps and photos aren't fixed in size. You have 8GB of space. You can put just under 8GB of content on the device. The amount of music, apps and pics depend on the music, app and pics you intend to put on the device.

marty1990 said:
And how much do texts take up on the phone?
Click to expand...
Again, depends on the texts. Texts are not fixed in size either. 1 character is 1 byte.
 
sweetbrat

sweetbrat

macrumors 65816
Jun 17, 2009
1,443
1
Redford, MI
I personally couldn't deal with 8GB, but that's me. I had a 16GB 3GS and went to 32GB when I got the 4S. For me it was worth the extra money because I spend much less time manually adding/removing stuff from the phone to make it fit. I don't like deciding which music to keep on the phone, which apps I purchased but should leave off because of space concerns, if I have enough empty space to take photos, etc.

It all has to do with how much you use your phone and how much time you want to spend managing what goes onto it.
 
Mars478

Mars478

macrumors 6502a
Mar 6, 2008
595
0
NYC, NY
My rule of thumb to this question, is if you have to ask this question, then it will not be enough space. :cool:
 
M

marty1990

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Nov 25, 2011
413
20
England
Hmm. Not sure what to do now! My Android has pretty much packed in. Well, it hasn't, it's just horrible to use knowing that any minute it could crash and restart on me. I can't afford the 4S, and can't afford a 16GB iPhone 4... so the 8GB was my only option, and now am doubting whether the 8GB would be enough for me. I'm a poor student you see.

Buying a cheap phone would be a waste of money and then saving up for a 16GB would take forever... and I don't fancy having to use a crappy cheap phone in the mean time.

... the only way is if I got another Android with expandable memory... but I don't really want to be doing that, since I could only fit into the budget range, and even the 8GB iPhone 4 is far superior to the budget Android phones.
 
S

salacious

macrumors 6502a
May 15, 2011
750
5
i had a blackberry with 2 gb memory card in it with about 300 mb left, my ipone 4s is 16gb i got 4 gb left, that should answer your question..
 
sweetbrat

sweetbrat

macrumors 65816
Jun 17, 2009
1,443
1
Redford, MI
marty1990 said:
Hmm. Not sure what to do now! My Android has pretty much packed in. Well, it hasn't, it's just horrible to use knowing that any minute it could crash and restart on me. I can't afford the 4S, and can't afford a 16GB iPhone 4... so the 8GB was my only option, and now am doubting whether the 8GB would be enough for me. I'm a poor student you see.

Buying a cheap phone would be a waste of money and then saving up for a 16GB would take forever... and I don't fancy having to use a crappy cheap phone in the mean time.

... the only way is if I got another Android with expandable memory... but I don't really want to be doing that, since I could only fit into the budget range, and even the 8GB iPhone 4 is far superior to the budget Android phones.
Click to expand...

8GB isn't impossible to live with. Just know that you may have to make decisions about how much music to keep on it, and be judicious about what apps you get.
 
C

cousinavi

macrumors newbie
Dec 25, 2011
7
0
UK
To be honest, i dont think it matters what size you opt for.

Whatever space you have, you'll end up filling it.. :eek:
 
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